


you're always holding on to stars.

by inquisitioned



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, and i wanted to write about them, gratuitous amounts of timeskips, stiles has spots, this is short but it has mama stilinski ERGO IT WINS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-26
Updated: 2013-03-26
Packaged: 2017-12-06 15:10:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/737069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inquisitioned/pseuds/inquisitioned
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Stiles was eight years old, his mother told him stories about the stars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're always holding on to stars.

i. 

When Stiles was eight years old, his mother told him stories about the stars. She was a kindergarten teacher and she was always full of stories—bad jokes, fairy tales, fables, each one more creative than the last. But the ones about the stars were always his favorite, when his dad would pick him up in a blanket and carry him out to the backyard for impromptu stargazing, where she waited with a lantern and a telescope and chocolate chip cookies, smiling at them both until his dad deposited him in his mom’s lap and she put her chin on his head and spoke. 

Orion was a hunter, put in the stars by Artemis, who was so in love with him that when Apollo killed him out of jealousy, she had him immortalized in the constellations. (She’d always smile at his dad, then, and ask him if he’d put her in the constellations; he always responded with yes.) He was Stiles’ favorite, and he’d beg for her to tell him about the dogs. His mom would touch his hair and then run her fingers over his moles, in conjunction with her story. Sirius was turned into a constellation because he was Orion’s hunting dog, and when Orion died, he wouldn’t stop searching for him, hysterically, so he became Canis Major, faithfully at Orion’s heels. 

That was why a dog was a man’s best friend—because, he’d repeat reverently, they stay with you forever. And you’re brave and strong just like Orion, sweetie, she’d say, and kiss his nose, and you’ve got your Canis Major with you right here, here, here, tapping out a pattern on the marks on his face until Stiles burst into laughter and pushed her hands away. 

 

(People don’t stay forever, he realized so many years later. And people don’t become constellations either; his mother deserved a thousand stars and she didn’t get one.) 

ii. 

 

Stiles is eighteen years old and there’s a woman touching his face. She’s a fury, that’s what she keeps calling herself (and oh, like he hasn’t heard that one before), and his number is supposedly up. Her fingers are gnarled and bony for a woman who appears to be twenty, and her breath smells disgusting, and really, the blood that’s pouring out of her eyes isn’t helping her win any beauty contests, and Stiles opens his mouth to say so. She just wrinkles her nose, turns his face with her fingers and touches the three spots in front of his ear, stroking them with what is probably a claw. Ew. 

“Look at you. Your face tells the story of the tragedies of my people—” and she sounds so smug, Stiles wants to remind her that she’s a supposedly mythological tragedy, but she’s squeezing his jaw shut. “—like a star chart.”

She’s going to snap his neck, or breathe the life out of him like a dementor—he survived one too many near death experiences, and she leans in close with her hands on his face, his neck, muttering something about Alecto or Megaera (the other furies, his treacherously useless brain reminds him), but Stiles doesn’t get the chance to find out how she’d kill him, because there are claws sticking out of her throat and the splatter of blood across his face is warm and disgusting, so much that he stops, frozen in place, to see Derek’s face instead of Scott’s, bright red eyes looming in the darkness. 

“What do we say to the god of death,” Stiles manages weakly, taking a step backwards and blinking down at the body that hits the ground, starting to whip away in black smoke (an “I’ll be back”, he’s sure), “Not today.”

 

Derek rolls his eyes and catches him on his arm right as he faints.

iii.

Stiles is twenty eight years old and wakes up to the feeling of fingers on his back. This is something more usual, a familiar press that rises him out of a lazy mid afternoon nap he didn’t realize he was taking; he’d climbed into bed after work, shucked all four of his layers and intended to watch some Netflix, but apparently his body wasn’t having any of that. He’s staring blearily at the bedside table in front of him, the blinking bright red of his alarm clock reading 6 PM in the low light, reflecting on a photograph of the pack all wearing matching sunglasses. He’s about to say something, drawl a good morning, when he hears Derek speak behind him, and his mouth presses against his shoulderblade. “Orion, the warrior.” 

When he cocks his head to the side, he knows he’s given himself up (not that Derek can hear him), but lays still anyway, drawling, “Commonly known as moles.” 

 

“Died because Apollo was jealous of Artemis’ love for Apollo.” The hand that was near his hip is up now, following a pattern of marks that’s familiar and hasn’t been traced since he was two or three and took bubble baths with his mom. Derek’s voice is gravelly, like he’d maybe fallen asleep, too, and he can feel him talking more than he can actually hear it, rumbling. “And was accompanied by Sirius, because Sirius was so upset that his master was gone.”

“Fourth century version of the widow’s walk.” There’s a pinch in response to that comment, and Stiles jumps, rolling over fully to look at Derek, who stares down his nose at him and shakes his head. He’d swear it was fond. (He knew it was fond. He’d been fluent in the increasingly complicated visual language of Derek Hale since he was sixteen and being pushed into walls.) But when he dips back in again, his hand comes up and brushes the spots across his cheek, and he mutters, “You don’t see me pointing arrows at your potential suitors.”

Stiles’ mouth draws into a lazy grin and he drawls, “That’s Allison.”

The snort he gets is satisfying, and he can feel Derek smiling when he leans in to kiss him, can feel his calloused thumb mapping stars across his cheek and tries to sear the memory of it into the back of his mind.


End file.
